Scientology

Get it while it’s hot off the digital presses! Charlie White’s Enemy Reader #2 is now up, and we’re going to read it all up. With Barry Schwabsky, Noah Fischer, Alec Soth, and Suzanne Hudson, among others. [The Enemy]

Prospect 3 has appointed a new artistic director, Trevor Schoonmaker. Though Schoonmaker, the chief curator at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, may lack the star power of former directors Dan Cameron and Franklin Sirmans, he has clout; the Nasher organized Archibald Motely: Jazz Age Modernist, one of our favorite exhibitions from 2014. After a mixed bag of reviews for P.3, we’re looking forward to a new recruit. [The Art Newspaper]

“He has the energy and power of an Enzo Ferrari, the elegance of a Maserati, and the charm of Miss Universe.” Ooh la la, does the 61-year-old Simon de Pury, the Swiss baron and former auction-house exec, get some love in this slideshow. [Harper’s Bazaar]

Art nerds who dare to brave the snow to see NYC museum shows can still do so today. None are closed. Yet. [Google: MoMA, The Met, the Jewish Museum]

The Walker Art Center has announced the list of presenters at Super Script, a “conference on arts journalism and criticism in the digital age.” Tickets are $200. [Walker Art Center]

Museums are not immune to the effects of viral media, which may explain why it is sometimes integrated into their programming. Clayton Cubitt’s viral video of celebrities getting off while reading will be part of an upcoming exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. [Paper]

Check the status of subways, buses, schools, commuter rails, airports, and roads before traveling today. [The New York Times]’

A roundup of hardcore snowstorm history, dating back to 1851. They were more fun back then: “From the first day that cold weather has fairly set in, sleighs of most tempting and gaudy hues, are displayed on the pavement by speculative coach-builders. Little boy’s sleds painted to catch the youthful eye are seen in the windows and at the doors of toy-shops; are regularly baptised, and have names of an inspiring nature inscribed upon them.” [ANIMAL New York]

This means we probably won’t get to see the asteroid, which is also coming. NASA assures that it will not hit us. [The Guardian]

Sunday, Greece elected an anti-austerity party, signaling a major shift in the country’s political direction. The youth are revolting in Greece, against the oligarchy and the Nazi-like Golden Dawn Party. [The Guardian]

Alfred Hitchcock was the supervising director for an unfinished documentary of Holocaust footage. The new HBO documentary “Night Will Fall” covers the making of that film. [Los Angeles Times]

There’s also going to be a new Scientology documentary-exposé “Going Clear”; HBO has preemptively hired 160 lawyers. [The Daily Beast]

N00ooOOoooooo. After a century in business, another New York stalwart, Yonah Schimmel’s Knishes, may close due to higher rents. But aren’t we lucky for gardens on condo rooftops. [Bowery Boogie]

Ben Davis doesn’t want to write another piece about the poisonous art market, but he believes it’s his responsibility, so he’s doing it. We’re glad he did. He singles out the big three that are ruining art for everybody: unsustainable contradictions (often, artists making wink art about money) inequality, and terrible people. “…personally, I feel that art is too important to become PR for tycoons,” he writes, “no matter how much they want to pay to make it so.” Amen, brother. [ARTinfo]

That Davis quote reminds us of a Bob Nickas quote tweeted by Karen Archey over the weekend. “Wealthy and powerful people—and boring people, and famous people—use art and artists to legitimize themselves.” [VICE]

18 human heads found in box at the airport, only Gawker seems to notice that that’s weird. [Gawker]

Painting needs some categories in order to go anywhere, so writer Richard Kalina has made some. Basically, they are “mimetic” and “abstract.” [Brooklyn Rail]

Remember when the Armory show was a shocking event? Neither do we, but this WNYC episode describes how the art there once helped the plunge into “absolute chaos and nightmare.” [WNYC]

Erin Kissane does a good job of explaining why the Atlantic was wrong to run a sponsored article for Scientology. [Incisive.nu]

Facebook just announced the new “graph search” feature that answers Facebook-specific questions like “restaurants my friends have been to” and “photos I’ve liked.” [CBS]